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Boulderites' film creating big buzz

By Mark Collins For the Camera

Posted:
11/17/2012 01:00:00 AM MST

The work of Boulder-based photographer James Balog is the focus of the documentary Chasing Ice. He is shown here with a backdrop of icebergs at Ilulissat Isfjord, UNESCO World Heritage site, Disko Bay Greenland.
(Courtesy photo)

It appears "Chasing Ice," the new documentary film created by a team from Boulder, is catching fire.

The film enjoyed a stronger-than-hoped-for opening last weekend at New York City's Cinema Village, according to Dan Braun, spokesman for the film's distributor, Submarine. The independently produced film about climate change grossed just less than $21,000 on a single screen in New York during the all-important opening weekend.

"That's a significant number," Braun said. "I think the closest number for an independent was about $7,000 per screen, so it was triple what any of the competition got to on that three-day period."

That strong opening led to 35 theaters across the country contacting "Chasing Ice" distributors in just one day this past week to ask for the film. It opened Friday in several other bigger markets, including Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle and Portland.

"Chasing Ice" is scheduled to open next Friday in Denver at the Landmark's Chez Artiste. It's set for a Dec. 12-15 run at The Boedecker in the Dairy Center for the Arts, according to Boedecker programmer Glenn Webb.

Directed by Jeff Orlowski, "Chasing Ice" focuses on the work of James Balog, the Boulder-based photographer who has documented rapidly melting glaciers in the far reaches of the northern hemisphere since 2007 through his Extreme Ice Survey project. Using time-lapse photography over months and months, Balog and his crew have captured stunning imagery of massive ice forms in decay.

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The film's co-producer, Jerry Aronson, said "Chasing Ice" offers two stories: one about the ice, the other about Balog, a world-renown photographer and former climate-change doubter.

"The film tells his story of going from climate-change skeptic to believing what his own eyes are telling him, and what his photography is telling him," said Aronson, who lives in Boulder. "And the other story is what the cameras are telling us. What we see as an audience is frighteningly amazing footage of glaciers melting at an alarming rate.

"I tell people it's the most beautiful film you'll ever see about the end of the world."

Balog, interviewed by the Camera via phone last week while he was in Los Angeles promoting the film, said Hurricane Sandy's devastation of parts of the Northeast has brought the issue of climate change back into the forefront of many people's minds.

"There is a widespread sense of frustration if not outright anger that the subject of climate change never came up in the presidential debates, given the fact that 70 percent of the American public has been polled as saying that they think there's climate change," Balog said. "And a solid majority is saying there's man-made climate change."

Braun, who works in New York City, which suffered heavy damage from the recent storm, said current interest in the film might have been sparked in part by Sandy. The cinema that screened the film in New York was without power until five days before "Chasing Ice" wowed audiences there.

"There is a direct relevancy to the storm," Braun said. "I think people are hearing about it and thinking, 'Here are some actual images that show what's going on.'"

It was the ability of Orlowski, Balog and their team to capture striking, beautiful and sometimes-harrowing images of city-block-sized portions of glaciers slowly or suddenly disappearing that caused Paula DuPre' Pesmen to get involved with the project as co-producer in 2009. DuPre' Pesmen, of Boulder, was still busy producing eventual Academy Award-winning documentary "The Cove" when she agreed to meet with Balog and Orlowski that year.

"They opened the laptop and showed me some footage and I said, 'OK, I'm on board. This one's for the kids; this one's for my children and other children,'" said DuPre' Pesmen, a mother of two young sons. "I had never seen anything like it.

"James' work is visual," she continued. "We all hear about (climate change) and read about it, we've seen graphs and reports ... But as humans, we need to see things."

An educational smart phone app that will aid school teachers and anyone else who wants to learn about the film's subject is in the works, Balog said.

"Chasing Ice" will open in the United Kingdom in December, and mainstream movie-house chain Cinemark has shown interest in screening it, the film producers said.

"We want people to see the film to really understand that climate change is a problem, and if we don't do something soon, it's going to be a really big problem," Aronson said.

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